No joke. Miss Sky went to school for a while with the sons of a celebrity who was currently making a living advocating similar “healthy”/severely restricted eating. The kids had TERRIBLE teeth — weak from lack of calcium, apparently — and the younger was notorious for eating his way through other families’ pantries…

I wasn’t arguing against STEM training. I was saying that it shouldn’t be so heavily prioritized and elevated in our educational system and culture above the humanities and the arts. I think they are ALL important, and little kids, especially, should be trained in and exposed to all of those disciplines.

There are…

That’s some shoddy reasoning. You went from “arts” to “art”. Did you do that on purpose, or not realize the mistake you were making? The arts include writing, music, performance, dance, painting, sculpture, etc. I didn’t argue that Darwin was a painter. I argued that it’s ALL important: science, math, literature,…

That’s not my experience these days. I agree it used to be like that.

My close friend who is a VERY highly regarded structural engineer took no humanities classes in college, IIRC. Her daughter, doing physics at Cambridge, is doing no humanities classes at all. My friend — who is an incredibly intelligent person —…

I saw your opening clause and thought, “Yeah, I should be careful to qualify that.” Then I click and see idiocy.

As I have noted several times in this thread, I am not arguing that humanities should be elevated in importance over STEM; both are important. I get just as exasperated by the proudly innumerate, and no…

Really? Who are the sociologists doing this? I was History & Literature, myself.

Pretty sure Durkheim, Weber and Foucault haven’t been doing a lot of commenting.

A friend of mine who taught history at an English university for a long time used to talk about how disappointing her highly educated English students were compared to American kids, because the English system starting narrowing students’ studies MUCH earlier. They knew a lot more history, but they basically stopped…

Except lots of people with critical thinking skills sharpened primarily via STEM training fall for all sorts of nonsense ideological nonsense, ranging from libertarianism to fundamentalist terrorism. I personally have talked to highly trained STEM experts who can’t recognize fallacious argument, and fall for absurd…

What you’re saying is readily disproved by data — you know, that thing people with STEM degrees (so, apparently not you) are supposed to be well-versed in. You reveal your ignorance with your misuse of the word “metaphysics”. It does not mean what you think it means.

IIRC, what he argued in the deposition was that he only “used” the Quaaludes consensually — that he only gave them to women with their consent. But I think he then slipped up and said some stuff that revealed his idea of “consent” was “I knew from their body language that they wanted me,” a common rationale that is…

You know what else is important? Understanding language, rhetoric, reasoning, argument, logic, etc.

I am so sick of this bullshit prioritizing science and math over the humanities. People who can’t evaluate argument, recognize propaganda or understand history and sociology are much easier to manipulate, even if they…

I am a Harvard graduate. Generally speaking, Harvard students are bright, well-prepared, ambitious and privileged. They are not, as a group, significantly more intelligent than the general population — presuming you filter out people who can’t care for themselves, etc. Getting into Harvard has never been about extreme…

I’m not wishing for it. I’m the rare Jay Cutler fan who would like to see him do well. But that seems like the most likely reason Lurie fired Kelly before the end of the season, doesn’t it? Wants to install an assistant from another team that isn’t going to the playoffs, so can interview now.

Why else do it THIS WEEK?…

So firing him before the end of the season must mean one of two things, right? 1) Lurie wants a head start on interviewing Adam Gase. 2) Chip is an intolerably huge asshole, worse than every other asshole head coach.

I’m hoping it’s 1 — mostly because I want to see innovation in the NFL. I’d be curious to see him and…

Not one of Miss Sky’s grandparents changed her diaper EVER, IIRC. There’s a world where grandfathers change diapers? Really?

Speaking as the relative of several alcoholics and addicts, I actually think this is the better approach. That NFL style “punishment” paradigm doesn’t work for anybody, and it might make things worse with someone with addiction issues. Add in that they apparently have to play him in the last game, and threatening…

Yet black players who use pot will, in all likelihood, continue to have their careers destroyed.

You asked me for the reference. I don’t pay attention to RCP, because in the past it had a right wing slant. With both polling and polling aggregations, the devil’s in the details.

I see that as of today, RCP has a Trump v. Clinton that has Clinton on top. But that’ ABC/WaPo, and I am not going to take the time to to…

I don’t keep this stuff on my hard drive, but Google is your friend. Sanders has done better than Clinton in every head to head general election match-up done by a major poll in the last few months. There are other polls that get at that phenomena in other ways — polling in the South that indicates people who haven’t…

Yep.